So when Kennedy was first told about a new RTE show called The Ex Files, the idea of hosting the dating game seemed an unlikely, and tacky, prospect. It certainly did not seem like the vocation she had been looking for.
“To be honest, I just sort of fell into this,” says Kennedy. “The presenting end of things only happened because a friend phoned me (about the Ex Files job), and initially I said I wasn’t interested. I thought it would be like Cilla Black, fingers on the buzzers — I just didn’t see myself like that.” It was only at the last minute, she says, that she relented and phoned the show’s makers, Adare Productions.
“But getting The Ex Files was the best thing, because I have always been very nosy all my life. I’m a girl, so I think we’re all nosy anyway: all we do is discuss love lives and whether boys are big or small, good kissers or bad kissers. And now I get paid to do it. So it was really like I was born to do that job.”
Since taking the plunge with The Ex Files, Kennedy has come across as a natural. Each week, as she tried to help contestants rekindle relationships with former lovers, the 29-year-old presenter effortlessly slotted into the reality show’s twisted sensibility, keenly playing off her charges’ often uneasy chemistry. Kennedy’s vivacious presence has not gone unnoticed and, as a reward for her efforts, she is set to co-host a new offbeat chat show on RTE2, The Podge and Rodge Show, with the eponymous scabrous puppets.
The twice-weekly programme, which mixes interviews with quizzes and comedy, might be something of a risk for the scatological mannequin act, but for Kennedy it is the latest vote of confidence in her rapidly rising career. As well as the new show, she is currently working on a second series of The Ex Files, and has further broadened her portfolio with appearances on the travel series No Frontiers.
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Kennedy clearly made the right decision by dropping her initial prejudices and embracing life as a presenter. But having worked for years in the unpredictable world of independent television production — among her previous jobs was a stint at Double Z, the company behind Podge and Rodge — she is too canny to start making grand plans for her future.
“I know I sound like a loser,” she laughs, “but I’m just happy where I am now. I just go with the flow. One minute I was making poo and vomit for Podge and Rodge, and before I knew it, I was asking people about their love life. And here I am today; from the day I got the phone call about The Ex Files, it has flown by. I don’t really make goals; it’s a fickle old industry. I would be conscious of being overused.”
As her profile rises, Kennedy seems comfortable in her own skin. Chatty, clear headed and self-deprecating in person, she does not project herself as a shrinking violet. She is happy to claim partial credit for the open, cheeky tone of The Ex Files — referring to her approach as “the Lucy way” — but, by the same virtue, seems to have little of the needy ego or professional pushiness of some of her peers.
“I’m not one of these people who goes out every weekend to the right places,” she says. “I’d like people to know of me because I’m a good presenter, not because I’m on the telly. I would be a private person; I’m a bit of a home bird. I go around in tracksuits, with no make-up. Usually I’m a slob.”
Kennedy definitely has an earthy side: presently suffering from a stomach bug, she cautions that she might have to depart for the lavatory at any time. Indeed, her engaging yet slightly ribald persona has been the key to her success so far. Kennedy may well become “a bit of a counsellor” for the contestants seeking a reunion with an old flame, but is equally game when it comes to ratcheting up the tittle-tattle.
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Above all, she doesn’t flinch when it comes to the show’s cruelly poised, potentially cringe-inducing climax, which has seen contestants invite their chosen ex on a holiday, only to be rebuffed in favour of a cash prize.
“I spend four days with the main person, so I get close to them, but there’s a fine line: I can’t advise them who to pick,” she says. “That is the hardest bit of the job and I think sometimes I come across as a heartless bitch, because I’ve got to stand there and wrap it up, even if it’s bad news. So they may not show the bit where I look in pain, and I come across as a young Anne Robinson, that I don’t give a shit. My problem is I give a shit too much. I feel physically sick for them.”
It is little wonder that Kennedy is happy to overlook such problematic details: after all, it took her more than a decade to find her feet professionally. Having harboured journalistic ambitions as a schoolgirl at Holy Child, Killiney (“I’m not a holy girl,” she cackles), Kennedy eschewed college for a stint as an air hostess with CityJet. She later went on to take a television-production course, before working as a researcher during Eamon Dunphy’s brief tenure on The Weakest Link: “He gets an awful lot of stick, but he’s a sweetie,” she says.
It is her time at Double Z, however, that now seems most beneficial: having spent two years working for Mick O’Hara and Ciaran Morrison, the voices behind Podge and Rodge, Kennedy has few worries about working alongside the duo’s anarchic alter egos in the new show.
Aside from mild trepidation at having to present in front of a live studio audience — “What if you want to pull your knickers out of your bum or scratch your nose?” — Kennedy is confident and excited about her latest project. In truth, there are concerns that Podge and Rodge’s bawdy shtick might wear thin over a format lengthier than a 10-minute segment: O’Hara’s and Morrison’s previous foray into irreverent chat shows, the short-lived Bronx Bunny slot on E4, does not entirely encourage optimism.
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But Kennedy’s mix of easy-going optimism and hard-won realism means she is not about to get unduly worried: the second series of The Ex Files arrives soon, and the nearest thing to a looming crisis in her life is her 30th birthday, in April. “I think you get to the stage where you’re too old to present,” she says. “I swear to god, I’m not celebrating my 30th. Guys get sexier, but girls just droop, everything goes south. And I’m gutted, because I feel 21. I’m going out with the same guy for six years, who I absolutely adore, but I think, I’m now 30; I’m going to have to say, let’s get engaged, let’s start getting serious. And I don’t feel serious.”
This is hardly surprising: Kennedy is still having too much fun with her accidental career. “I know I’m not saving the world, or saving children’s lives,” she says. “I’m not doing anything serious, but for me, when I finish a shoot and I know that the contestants have had a laugh or gained something from it, I do think that was a good week’s work. I’m getting fulfilment from it: I’m being true to myself. Once I stick to that, I ’m happy.”
The Podge and Rodge Show begins on RTE2 on February 6 at 10.40pm